


It's a poptastic game!

by Windfighter



Series: Iron Man-bingo card 17 [9]
Category: Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Tower, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Gambling, Gen, Poptarts, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 19:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20296543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windfighter/pseuds/Windfighter
Summary: The team plays poker!





	It's a poptastic game!

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Iron man-bingo and the square "Gambling"
> 
> Takes place the day after ["Money can't buy happiness [...]"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20288821) but you don't need to read that one first to understand this.

Tony's delivery from the hardware store arrived mid-morning when he was busy inventing stuff, so Steve signed it off and carried it to the lab. Tony smiled when he saw it, waved towards one of the corners.

”Dum-E, put it away. But don't hide it this time!”

The robot beelined to the pile and started picking stuff up. Tony looked up just as Dum-E grabbed to paint he had bought and he let out a sharp whistle.

”Those are Steve's, put them down.”

Dum-E beeped sadly but did as told. Steve picked them up and walked over to Tony's desk.

”You sure about me redrawing your walls?”

”I'm tired of all the white. Do something spectacular! Like me!”

Tony blinked, blushed.

”Oh shit, that came out weird.”

Steve chuckled.

”A little. Any requests?”

”Iron Man, obviously, otherwise free hands.”

Steve put the paint on the floor and sat down on the desk, watched as Tony worked. Dum-E put a black box on the desk before zooming away again and Tony blinked in confusion before remembering what it was. He smiled at Steve.

”You got anything to do?”

”Not really? Are you going to get me in trouble again?”

”Nah, just need you to run to the store and buy a heckton of pop-tarts.”

”How much is a heckton?”

”As much as you can carry.”

At this point Steve knew better than to try and question Tony's weird ideas and there wasn't anyway the genius could get pop-tarts to explode (at least not to Steve's knowledge) so Steve got up again, grabbed the card Tony held out for him, waved goodbye and left Tony to his inventions.

Steve could carry _ a lot_ of pop-tarts it turned out and he ended up going to several stores and buying up their stack. If nothing else at least Thor and Clint would be happy about it. Tony's voice rang through the speakers as he entered the elevator and told him to take them to the communal floor.

”I'll be there in a couple minutes, I'm almost done here!”

Steve put them on the table in the kitchen and was just about to start putting them into the pantry when Tony arrived with the black box he had bought. He told Jarvis to fetch the others as well, put the box on the table and started opening the boxes, putting the poptarts in six equal piles on the counter. Clint was the first one to arrived. He dropped out of the vent and Tony jumped, put a hand across his arc reactor.

”Barton! I'm gonna add cowbells to your clothes! I have a heart condition!”

”Love you too, Tones. What's up? Oooh, are those poptarts?”

Clint reached out to snatch one but Tony hit his hand.

”No eating the currency. Not yet at least. Just sit down and wait for the others to arrive.”

Thor was the next one and he sat down in his usual chair. His eyes also fell on the poptarts, but he noticed Tony's protective stance and didn't attemt to reach for them. Steve leaned against the counter, eyes on Tony. The elevator dinged again and Bruce and Natasha arrived. Natasha's eyes danced from Tony to the poptarts to the black box to the table. Her lips twitched in what could almost be a smile and she sat down opposit of Clint. Bruce scratched the back of his head.

”What's going on? What's the emergency?”

”Jarvis? Tony asked. ”You told them it was an emergency?”

”No sir, I merely stated that sir required their presence in the kitchen ten minutes ago.”

”I should be angry but I'm not. Okay then guys, gamenight!”

”It's afternoon”, Steve stated.

”Game afternoon then. I have a pokerset that needs to be used.”

”We betting?” Clint asked and Steve frowned. ”With what money?”

”No money, only poptarts! Of course if you'd rather just eat the poptarts and miss out on the chance of winning more you are free to take your pile and leave.”

Tony gestured to the piles on the counter. Clint and Thor both hesitated because the chance of winning also came with the risk of losing. Tony sank down in his regular chair and Steve crossed his arms over his chest. Tony laughed at him.

”Come on gramps, don't tell me you've never gambled before.”

”I have but as the leader I feel like I should... something.”

”Take a seat and start dealing instead.”

Steve sat down, opened the black box. Tony handed out pokerchips to everyone because it was easier than stacking all the poptarts on the table. Thor and Clint decided to play and Clint explained the rules to Thor. Steve shuffled the cards, then handed the deck to Tony and the game was on.

Everyone started out carefully, only betting one poptart. An attempt to learn the others' tells. Natasha's eyes constantly jumped between everyone, read them carefully. Steve glanced at his cards, at the cards on the table and at his own cards again. He seemed to be calculating. Bruce leaned back, tried to stay calm. He focused mostly on his own cards, answered when someone talked to him, but his brain seemed to still be in his lab and not at the table. Thor loudly announced his cards and the others laughed, Clint patted his arm and told him not to do that. Tony leaned back, talked about how the new gear was coming along and Clint engaged in conversation with him while still keeping an eye on the rest.

Bruce won the first hand. Natasha dealt the cards, everyone betted one poptart again. It continued like that – Tony won the second hand, Thor the third, Steve the fourth and Tony the fifth. After that the betting increased. Tony had evolved a lot of false tells during his younger years, and they stumped the two superspies a few times, earning him a huge pile of poptarts. Thor's complete puppyface and utter lack of secracy made him the winner of a very huge pile, but no one suspected the great Captain America to be bluffing and they all lost to him. Bruce had a very careful gamestyle, folded when his cards weren't good and betted when they were. Except one time when he didn't look closely enough at them and ended up betting his whole pot on what turned out to be nothing. The others folded and he came away the winner anyway. Natasha was more interested in watching her teammates than playing the game and she was the first one to lose all her poptarts. Tony watched her carefully while still talking about the latest projects S.H.I.E.L.D were hounding him about and noticed that although she wasn't actievly part of the game any longer she had taken to giving Clint clues on whether to bet or fold.

Bruce was the next one out, after another mistaken bet on a hand that was nothing. He leaned back, grabbed a book and tried to ignore the volume around table which kept getting louder and louder. Tony's pile had gotten small, but he won it back again after the others thought he was bluffing with a straight flush. Natasha and Bruce left the table to start with dinner and then Steve was out as well. He ruffled Tony's hair before fetching a cup of coffee for the genius. Tony barely noticed it. Thor seemed to be losing, but then Tony went all in and spectacularly lost everything on a pair of twos.

”Good game!” he said, patted Thor's shoulder and drank the coffee. He turned around in the chair and started talking with Bruce about a new experiment and Bruce shook his head, not interested in making anything explode for the moment. Tony decided to retry the conversation later, when they were actually in the lab and the experiment was almost prepared anyway.

The game kept going back and forth between Clint and Thor for a while until Natasha put the food on the table and told them to just split the poptarts between them because it was time for dinner. Clint took his share of the winnings and hid them in the vent while Thor put his in the pantry so he could have them for the movie they were watching later. With the prize hidden away they all sat down around the table and started eating. Steve leaned closer to Tony.

”You lost on purpose, didn't you?”

”I don't even like poptarts”, Tony laughed. ”They were always meant to go to the poptastic duo and I'm glad the rest of you were bad enough at poker to make it happen.”


End file.
